


Love Endures All Things

by lirin



Category: 19th Century CE RPF
Genre: F/M, Gen, POV Multiple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:48:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29596488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lirin/pseuds/lirin
Summary: Harriet with her friends and loved ones, over the years.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4
Collections: Black Is Beautiful 2021





	Love Endures All Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Beatrice_Otter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beatrice_Otter/gifts).



_**Philia** _

The first Patsy knew that anything had happened was when she heard the scream and the thud.

It could have been anyone, white or black, who had made that terrible sound. But somehow, as soon as Patsy heard it, she feared for Minty. She left the milliner at the counter, still toting up the sums for Patsy's mistress's order, and ran outside, looking intently towards the crossroads. When she had seen Minty ten minutes prior, her friend had mentioned that she'd been sent to fetch sundries from the dry goods store on the corner. They'd chatted for less than a minute, not daring to be seen loitering for any longer than that. Then Patsy had shouldered her basket, and Minty had adjusted the shawl she had draped over her voluminous hair, and they had gone their separate ways.

Now Minty lay in the doorway of the store, and the shawl was stained all over with red. Patsy gasped, swallowing bile, as she joined the small crowd that had gathered. A weight from the store's scales lay on the ground nearby, revealing what had felled her friend. It, too, was stained with bright red blood.

"You! Girl!" one of the white men snapped. Patsy looked up, wondering if he was addressing her, and he beckoned impatiently. "Grab her legs."

Another slave was already taking Minty's shoulders, and he and Patsy lifted her as gently as they could.

The walk back to the plantation took forever. Patsy was glad Minty was still in a dead faint, to spare her the pain that each of their steps must surely be shooting through her poor damaged body; but she feared whether she would ever wake up. The blood was still oozing through her thick hair, and it dripped onto the dusty road as they walked.

When they finally reached the house, there weren't any spare beds to put Minty on. One of the overseers yelled something about bundling up old clothes—not that they had very many of those, wearing everything until it wasn't even rags anymore—and laying Minty on the ground with clothes for a pillow, but finally one of the women suggested that the bench of the loom was long enough to support Minty, and so they laid her on it.

Patsy stood there looking at Minty for a moment. She laid her hand on her forehead: it was cool—too cool, perhaps—and sticky with half-dried blood. She wished for some sort of prayer to say for her, but neither of Patsy's owners had ever been ones for sending their slaves to church, and she'd been sold away from her mama before she'd been old enough to learn more than scattered memories of the faith that Mama had had from her grandmama, that she had learned back home in Africa where they belonged.

Perhaps even Patsy's mama would not have known what to say in this circumstance; when she'd been taken from Patsy, she'd said no prayers at all but only whispered "I love you, child. Always remember that you are loved."

And so that was what Patsy whispered over Minty: "Don't give up. Always remember that you are loved."

"You've all rested long enough," the overseer said sharply, and everyone jumped. "Back to work. You, girl, get back to where you belong."

Patsy didn't dare give him time to tell her twice. She pressed her hand to Minty's forehead in one final farewell—she knew it wasn't likely she would ever see her friend alive again—and ran for home. She hoped that her master had heard what had happened and would understand that it hadn't been her idea to stay out longer than she ought; or perhaps he had started drinking early enough that neither he nor her mistress had noticed her tardiness at all.

***

Patsy escaped censure that night, but it was two days before she had a chance to see Minty again. On Saturday, her mistress asked her to take a note to the mistress of the very plantation where Minty was. Patsy nodded and said "Yes'm" and took the note with downcast eyes, but as soon as she reached the road, she started to run. If she got there fast enough, she could steal a few minutes with Minty and still be back by the time her mistress expected her.

She hoped Minty was even alive to steal those minutes with. 

Patsy thought that her mama would have prayed to the ancestors, but she'd never taught Patsy how. She knew that Minty believed in the Christian God, the one the white people talked about and whom Patsy had never known, but she didn't know how to pray to him either. So as she ran, she thought over and over about how she hoped Minty would live, and she hoped that perhaps their ancestors or Minty's god was listening. Minty had so much life left ahead of her. Not that anyone's life was very good around here, but there were still moments of happiness and hope, and Patsy didn't want Minty to miss out on those. She clenched her hand tight around the note in her hand—though not too tight or she would be punished for crumpling it—and ran on.

One of the older slave women, a skilled seamstress named Mariah, was standing by the gate when Patsy arrived. "Minty's been waking off and on since noon," she said. "She's had no doctor and no medicine, but she's strong, that girl."

Patsy nearly sobbed. "She's alive?" she whispered, just to hear Mariah confirm it once more.

"Still alive, and if the Lord wills it she'll stay that way," Mariah said. "He must have his eye on her. When I saw her at first I thought for sure she was gonna die."

"I thought so too," said Patsy. "She still in the weaving room?"

Mariah nodded. Patsy squeezed her hand in thanks, and hurried off.

Minty was lying right where Patsy had left her on the bench of the loom and her hair was still matted all over with blood, but her eyes were open. Patsy stepped up next to her and bent down, doing her best to smile at her friend. "I'm glad you're alive," she said.

"So am I," Minty whispered through dry bloodied lips.

Patsy ran to fetch a dipper of water. Putting her other arm around Minty's shoulders, she helped her friend to sit up just enough that she could sip slowly at the water. "How are you feeling?" Patsy asked.

"I thought I was going to die," Minty whispered.

"I know, I'm sorry," Patsy said. "I wish we could have done more—"

"You don't understand," Minty continued. She took another sip of water, and her voice got stronger. "I believe the Lord came to me in a vision," she said.

"People see all sorts of things when they hit their heads," Patsy said.

"No, this was real," Minty said. "I think he let me live because there's something he wants me to do."

Patsy patted Minty's shoulder and gave her another sip of water. "What is it?"

"I don't know yet," Minty said. She started coughing and clutched her head, so Patsy lowered her back to the bench as gently as she could. "Do you think that someone like me could...could help people?"

"Help people how?" Patsy asked, taking the dipper back to the bucket in the corner. "We help the white folks with their homes and lands but I don't suppose that's what you've got in mind."

"Not at all," Minty said. She waited until Patsy returned to stand by her, and lowered her voice to a whisper. "I dreamed that I went north, and I wasn't alone."

Patsy nearly grabbed Minty's hand and held it tight, but she feared she would hurt her, so she clenched her fists instead. "We're barely more than children," she told Minty. "And you're"— _still likely going to die_ , she didn't say—"injured. And a woman. And a slave."

"I told you, God came to me in a vision," Minty said. She closed her eyes and settled her head more comfortably against the bench. "And I have faith in him."

Patsy laid her hand on her friend's forehead: another farewell as she had given the other day, but this time with more hope that they might meet many more times in this life. "I hope you're right," she said, and lowered her voice to a whisper as Minty had done. "You deserve to go north, and be free. You shouldn't die here."

"I'm not going to," Minty said. 'And you deserve it too."

"I hope you're right," Patsy said. There was so much more she wanted to say, but she still had her mistress's note tucked in her waistband, and if she waited any longer it would be obvious that she had dallied on the way. She left Minty lying there, still stained with her own blood, but alive and hopeful—and that was as much as Patsy could hope for, so she told herself to be content.

_**Eros** _

Minty's master wasn't opposed to her marrying a free man, for which John was thankful. His mother kept telling him that it would be easier and wiser to marry a free woman—to have children born into freedom, not following their mother into slavery—but none of the free women in Dorchester County fascinated John the way Minty did, with her careful smile and bright eyes.

Four months after that summer night when Minty was first hired out to haul timber on the land where John was also working, he took her hand and asked her to marry him. Minty said "Yes" with one of those smiles that were so rare for her, and yet so thrilling when he did manage to coax one out of her.

Then she nodded off immediately afterwards and had one of her sleeping spells for a quarter of an hour, which was a bit discouraging, but then that was how Minty was, and if John was going to marry her he would have to take the bitter with the sweet.

They married on a humid autumn afternoon, jumping over a broom together in the presence of all the laborers on the farm Minty was currently hired out to. Minty declared a desire to change her surname and take John's own, which made him proud. But he found her other wish more confusing.

"I've always known you as Minty," he told his wife. "'Rit' sounds so strange to my ears."

"My mama's full name is Harriet," Minty said. "I might call myself that instead of Rit. But I want to take her name, one way or another. I'm leaving the name my father bore behind me as I take yours, but I want something of my mother's, to carry her with me."

"It's your name, so I suppose it's your choice," John said. "A new name for a new life. Harriet Tubman."

"I've heard that that's what some people do when they cross the border to freedom," she said. "They take new names, ones they pick all for themselves."

"You won't have to go north," John assured her. "We'll save up. We'll buy your freedom eventually. Don't you worry about a thing."

Harriet laughed. "You know how I can tell you've always been free? It's because you say things like that."

John reached forward and squeezed her hand. "You'll be free eventually, and meanwhile, I'm here with you. Can't you just be happy with that?"

Harriet nodded and allowed that she would try, but John could tell that her heart wasn't really in it.

***

Five years later, Harriet headed north without him, and nothing he had said over the years could change her mind. John didn't even have a chance to say goodbye, because she wasn't hired out that winter, and her master's land was too far from the farm where John was working for her to make one last visit.

When he heard the news, John stared out at the horizon for a minute—no longer, because he had worked for ten hours that day and needed to eat a few bites and go to bed. He wondered what could make someone want freedom so badly that they left behind all of their loved ones and every person they had ever known, gaining that one thing at the loss of everything else. Freedom wasn't even a thing that you could have or hold.

He wondered if he'd ever truly understood his wife. Perhaps he hadn't. But he still hoped that, wherever she was, she was alive, and maybe even happy.

John supposed he owed it to her to move on and find happiness himself here, just as she would be doing in the north.

_**Storge** _

Kessiah couldn't help but burst into tears when her master's men came to take her and her two children. Her only comfort was that they would not touch her husband, for John Bowley had been born a free man.

"I won't forget you," she called to him as they dragged her away.

"I'll look for you," John called back, and that was the last thing she heard him say. She could still see him for a minute after that, slowly growing smaller and fading into the distance as the men hauled her along, but her eyes were too blinded by tears to see more than a blur.

They locked her and the children in a small room until the auction. Kessiah sat on the floor and settled James next to her, encouraging him to collect all the pebbles that he could from the dirty floor and see how high of a pile he could make. She clutched Araminta to her bosom; she'd been weaned months ago but she was still scarcely more than a baby, and the close contact brought them both comfort.

Araminta had been born the month after Kessiah's sister had run away to freedom. (She was actually Kessiah's aunt, but she wasn't much older than Kessiah and they'd been raised by the same woman—Kessiah's own mama having been sold down south when she was a baby—so Kessiah always thought of her as a sister.) As soon as Kessiah had heard that Minty was gone, she'd decided that if her baby was a girl, she would name her after Minty, to keep her alive.

She hoped that wherever Minty was, she was safer than her namesake, and much happier than Kessiah was.

Kessiah wished she'd been able to get to freedom herself, and take her children there. Now it was too late; she wouldn't have her husband here to help her and she might be sold further south where she would never see her family again, same as her mama had. Not wanting to frighten James further, Kessiah stifled another sob and held Araminta tighter.

When the men finally came to take Kessiah to the courthouse, she went with them quietly. The only thing she would achieve by resisting would be to frighten the children and get herself hurt. With Araminta in her arms and James sniffling beside her, she stood motionless on the courthouse steps as the auctioneer poked and prodded and yelled out numbers. For a moment, she thought she saw her husband in the small crowd before her, but her tears were blinding her too much to be certain.

To be honest, she hoped it wasn't him. One parting had been terrible enough; a second might be more than she could bear.

Eventually the auctioneer yelled "Sold!" and the current ordeal was over. There was an assortment of chatter between him and Kessiah's owner; after a minute they agreed that the auctioneer would go to dinner and deal with finalizing the sale afterwards. Kessiah shivered, and clutched James's hand.

Soon, some slaves came over to escort her back to her holding cell—or so she assumed. But after they had led her out of sight of the courthouse steps, the one closest to her whispered "Kessiah," and her heart leaped.

"John?" she whispered back.

"Hurry," he said. He led the way a few more minutes' walk to a small house only a stone's throw from the waterfront. "We'll hide here until nightfall," he said.

A white woman in plain Quaker dress opened the door when he knocked, and led the way to a small cramped basement room. "Thou and thy children art welcome here," she said. "Please be quiet, in case they search the neighborhood for thee. I will bring dinner down later."

"Thank you," John said quietly, and Kessiah nodded her agreement. Then the door shut, and their small family was alone in the dark.

"I thought I had lost you forever," Kessiah whispered, finally allowing herself all the tears she had blinked back over the past days.

John wrapped his strong arms around her. "I'm not going to let that happen," he whispered back. "Not if there's anything I can do to save you." He kissed the top of her head. "The next part is going to be dangerous, though."

"I don't care," Kessiah said. "At least we're together, and headed to freedom. That's worth any risk."

***

That night, John helped them all into a small canoe and set out on the Chesapeake. The boat was heavily laden with the four of them, and twice it threatened to overturn. They spent all day on the water, with nothing to eat but a loaf of bread that the Quaker woman had pressed into Kessiah's hands as they'd left. James was old enough that John and Kessiah could explain to him that he needed to be quiet, but Araminta was too young to understand. Kessiah gave her her fingers to suckle as much as she could, and when that didn't work, she set her in the base of the canoe with her shawl and skirts tented above her in hopes that it would keep the sound of her cries from traveling over the water.

When they reached Baltimore, John's brother met them at the waterfront and led them to a house, where another surprise was waiting for them. "Minty?" Kessiah exclaimed.

One of the newcomers shushed her, but Kessiah had eyes only for her beloved sister. Minty hurried forward and wrapped her arms around Kessiah, and Kessiah returned the embrace with enthusiasm.

"You got to safety after all," Kessiah said. "I'd been so worried. But—you're back. It's still a long ways from here to freedom. If anyone finds you..."

"It's all right," Minty told her. "The people who own this house can be trusted. And you're right: it's a long ways from here to freedom, and you need someone to help you get there. I know the way, and I'm going to lead you to freedom."

"You came back for us?"

"You're my family," Minty said. "What use is freedom if I can't share it with people?"

Kessiah blinked back tears, trying not to break down sobbing for the third time in as many days. "You need to meet your namesake," she said. "This is our little Araminta. She was born the month after you left. I know you changed your name to Harriet, but I'm afraid I'll always think of you as Minty."

She handed Araminta to her aunt Minty, who looked approvingly at the little girl. "She won't remember anything but freedom," Minty said.

Kessiah wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. It still seemed entirely incredible, that a child of hers should know anything other than slavery, and yet here they were. "The first child in our family to have that," she said.

"But not the last," Minty said. "Not if there's anything I can do about it."

_**Agape** _

Patsy pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders as she trudged back to her small cabin at the far outskirts of the slaves' quarters. She hoped that her husband Amos would already be there waiting for her; their master had still been ordering the house slaves around when she'd left, but the field hands at least ought to be done for the night.

And if you asked Patsy, they deserved it, for they'd all had long days full of work. And there was still more to come, if she wanted to get anything done for herself. The last vestiges of twilight were just leaving the sky, so Patsy reckoned that she had enough time to work on her quilt for half an hour if her daughter kept quiet and didn't need too much minding.

But all thoughts of sewing went out of her head when she entered her cabin. Amos was there, and beside him: "This is Moses," he said. "Here to take us away."

Patsy had heard stories about Moses snatching slaves from under the white folks' noses, but the Moses they spoke of had seemed a mythical figure, as fantastic as her biblical namesake who went down into Egypt and told old Pharaoh to let his people go. But the short muscular woman before her wasn't a myth at all, but—"Minty?" Patsy asked. "I heard you went north."

"I did, and now I'm back," said Moses. "We leave tonight. Runaway notices aren't printed until Monday morning, so leaving on a Friday gives us a few days' head start. Pack what food you can carry, and we'll leave when the moon sets in an hour." As she finished speaking, her head dipped down towards her chest.

"Minty?" Patsy whispered, but her old friend seemed to be asleep. Patsy leaned over her. "Harriet? Moses?" There was no response, and Patsy straightened up with a sigh.

Amos put his hand around Patsy's shoulders. "I hope you don't mind the sudden decision," he said. "Moses said that she came here seeking her sister—"

"—but she died last year," Patsy said, laying a kerchief on the bed to bundle their food in.

"Yes. So she offered to take us away to freedom instead, and I knew you would agree with me."

"Yes, of course," Patsy said. "I've never thought I'd have that chance, but if the chance is here we ought to seize it."

Moses woke up a few minutes later. Patsy was already done packing—they would take almost nothing with them, not even her precious half-finished quilt or the scraps of fabric she was making it with, that she had laboriously scrounged over the years—and she suggested that they could leave sooner, but Moses insisted upon sitting quietly in the cabin until the moon was gone from the sky.

"Does your head still trouble you?" Patsy asked quietly.

"Sometimes," Moses said. "I get these sleeping spells."

"I saw," Patsy said. "Isn't that dangerous? Do you know when you're going to fall asleep?"

"I don't," Moses said. "But the Lord has kept me safe so far, and as long as he sees fit to keep helping me, I'm not going to hide away up north when I can be helping people here."

"We're mighty grateful for your help," Amos said.

***

When they finally crept out the cabin door, the moon was gone from the sky and it was nearly as dark as it ever got. Amos carried their daughter in his arms, and Patsy clung tight to his hand. Ahead of them, Moses strode confidently through the darkness.

 _We're going to be free_ , Patsy realized.

She hadn't thought about it in years, but the image flashed into her head of Minty lying on the seat of that loom so long ago, when they'd both been children, and talking about visions and freedom. Minty had looked so frail then, but she'd lived, and so had Patsy. And now here they were, following the North Star to freedom.

Well, Moses was following the North Star. Patsy was following Moses. And until she got to freedom, there was nowhere that she would rather be than at the heels of her old friend.

**Author's Note:**

> The four types of love are a bit pop psych and should be taken with a grain of salt, but they still make for a nice theme!  
>  _Philia_ : Friendship  
>  _Eros_ : Romantic love  
>  _Storge_ : Familial love  
>  _Agape_ : Self-emptying love
> 
> Patsy and her family are fictional, while John Tubman and the Bowleys (and of course Harriet/Minty/Moses herself) are historical characters.
> 
> I would like to acknowledge Kate Clifford Larson's fantastic biography _Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero_ , which I referenced extensively while writing this, and which I consider the definitive Tubman biography. That was the only book I referenced during the writing of this particular story, but for further acknowledgements of sources I've read in the past, please see the end notes of my previous Harriet Tubman fic, "[Swamp of Frightened Souls](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7443532)".


End file.
